Development as the Aim of Education

The authors offer an explanation of the psychological and philosophical positions underlying aspects of educational progressivism. They contrast tenets of progressivism,most clearly identified with the work of John Dewey, with two other educational ideologies, the romantic and the cultural transmission conceptions, which historically have competed in the minds of educators as rationales for the choice of educational goals and practices. Kohlberg and Mayer maintain that only progressivism,with its cognitive-developmental psychology, its interactionist epistemology,and its philosophically examined ethics, provides an adequate basis for our understanding of the process of education.